BORIS: UK WILL ‘ PROSPER MIGHTILY’ FREE FROM EU
BRITAIN will “prosper mightily” as an independent trading nation once free from the EU, Boris Johnson has declared.
The Prime Minister said the UK can completely sever ties with the bloc with “high hearts and
complete confidence” as he dramatically announced plans for a no- deal Brexit would be ramped up.
He accused Brussels of “effectively ending” trade talks and said the UK would step up its preparations for an “Australia- style” World Trade Organization ( WTO) agreement.
And he made clear that EU officials should only bother trying to negotiate any further if they have a “fundamental change of approach”.
Mr Johnson said: “I have concluded we should get ready for January 1 with arrangements more like Australia’s, based on simple principles of global free trade. So now is the time for our businesses to get ready, and for hauliers to get ready, and for travellers to get ready.
“For whatever reason, it is clear from the summit that after 45 years of membership they are not willing – unless there is some fundamental change of approach – to offer this country the same terms as Canada.
“And so, with high hearts and complete confidence, we will prepare to embrace the alternative.
“And we will prosper mightily as an independent free- trading nation, controlling our own borders, our fisheries, and setting our own laws.”
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, writing in the Daily Express, said: “Boris is reaching the right solution.”
Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen insisted that the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier would attend further negotiations in London next week “as planned”.
Downing Street suggested his trip would be pointless unless the EU shifted its position.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “There is only any point in Michel Barnier coming to London if he’s prepared to address all the issues on the basis of a legal text in an accelerated way, without the UK required to make all the moves or to discuss the practicalities of travel and haulage.
“If not, there is no point in coming. Trade talks are over. The EU have effectively ended them by saying they do not want to change their negotiating position.”
It has been agreed that Mr Barnier will speak with his UK counterpart David Frost next week. Mr Johnson had set the two- day European Council summit, which ended yesterday, as the deadline as to whether there was a deal to be done. But negotiations remain locked in stalemate in several key areas, including post- Brexit fishing rights, with both sides appear to be engaged in a game of brinkmanship as the clock ticks down.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte admitted: “We will not get 100 per cent of what we want, that’s impossible in a negotiation, you always have to find compromise, you always have to find ways within the mandate.”
While German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “I believe it would be in the interests of both sides to have an agreement although we also have to prepare for the alternative.”
The UK and EU had been hoping for a “zero- tariff” agreement to govern their trading relationship.
If a deal is not done, the UK will trade with the EU according to the WTO’s default rules.
In this scenario, which Australia follows, the EU would impose its tariffs on imported goods – pushing up the costs of items such as food and cars – and the UK would reciprocate.